I did some investigating about the lyrics which @AutisticPoet had referenced and found that they come from Drake’s song “Jodeci Freestyle”. In the last few days, J. Cole has certainly gotten the wrong kind of attention for these lyrics. There are many, myself included, who are upset at him because he chose to use the word “autistic” as an insult. “Autistic” by itself is merely a descriptive word that describes a person on the autism spectrum, or a person with autistic traits – unfortunately, the way in which J. Cole and others use the word can change its connotation to being negative, demeaning, and potentially dehumanizing.

Some in the autistic community are already taking action about this. Anna Kennedy and the Anti-Bullying Alliance have started a petition asking for an apology from J. Cole and Drake for the offensive lyrics. But I think this particular incident is indicative of a larger issue: the severe need for autism understanding and acceptance in the Black community.

On July 27, I will be a guest on the Poetic Travels on the Autism Hwy radio show, hosted on Blog Talk Radio by Kelly Green and Erik Estabrook. I will be discussing my poetry, how autism relates to my work, and performing some of my poems (including three from my upcoming chapbook, Novena (remixed)).

The show is scheduled for 4:00 PM Eastern/1:00 PM Pacific Time. The link below will take you directly to the broadcast:

ATTENTION ASPIES/AUTISTICS WITH AN OFFICIAL DIAGNOSIS: I would like to talk to you. I am currently working on an article about autism diagnosis in adults. Please contact me via email — woman.with.aspergers AT gmail.com — if you are interested in being interviewed.

One Negro speaks of rivers: change
the term, but the color’s still the same – and I speak
of computer hard drive brains, over-wired
circuitry, and hearts that fracture
at the slightest jolt. The souls of Black Folk?
What about the souls of autistic Black Folk?
We mud colored, we chocolate colored, we
beige colored. We green colored, we alien.
We strange.(from my poem, “1 in 88, Nicole Style”)

(Note: This is a continuation of the series”The Souls of Black Autistic Folk”. I encourage the reader to read the introduction, part 1, and part 2 of this series.)

When Paul Robeson was alive, autism was not very well known or understood. By the time he was a young man at Rutgers, neither Dr. Leo Kanner nor Dr. Hans Asperger had coined their terms for what we now call autism or Asperger Syndrome – those discoveries would not come until the early 1940’s, when Robeson was well into his theatrical and singing career. The public was not really aware of autism until at least the 1960’s, and unfortunately, awareness and media coverage on the subject came in the form of articles that declared autistic people as “mental cripples” such as this infamous 1965 Time Magazine article documenting Dr. Ivar Lovaas and his research at UCLA which led to the ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) methods of today. (Warning to abuse survivors: this article contains potentially triggering material, as it discusses what would now be considered physical and verbal abuse.) And Robeson lived – and died – before individuals such as Dr. Temple Grandin began to speak public about autism, themselves as an autistic people, and began to allow the public to gain a glimpse into their worlds and realities.

I have done the state some service, and they know’t.
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am, nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice…(From Shakespeare’s Othello, Act V, Scene 2, lines 339-343a)

Paul Robeson

In part I of this series, I provided an overview of Paul Robeson’s life in order for readers to begin to understand who we was. Robeson was a multitalented individual – an academic star during his undergraduate studies at Rutgers, an actor of great renown, and a singer with a power, singular voice. Based on evidence presented by Norm Ledgin in the book Asperger’s and Self-Esteem: Insight and Hope Through Famous Role Models, I also believe that Robeson was autistic. I will present that evidence in this post.

(Please note: Ledgin uses a summary of main points of the diagnostic criteria for Asperger Syndrome from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV. At times I will be referencing more specific criteria for Asperger Syndrome – 299.80 – as posted at the Centers for Disease Control’s website.)

And here isPaul, the man made out of crossroads, seven or eight menin one body. Call him Othello if you like. He isvoice-colored and fist-worn with Jim Crow’s black feathersplastered to his knuckles. He has a sixteen track mind,almost drowned by man-made lightning. He was aserif font road sign: Poitier and Belafonte read him andfound their way to the stage. Here is Paul.(an excerpt from my poem, “Tribe”)

I began this exploration of being African-American and autistic a few days ago by mentioning Paul Robeson, an individual where Black history and autism intersect. I had encountered the premise that Mr. Robeson had Asperger Syndrome in Norm Ledgin’s book Asperger’s and Self-Esteem: Insight and Hope Through Famous Role Models about two years ago and was immediately fascinated by it. While other African-American historical figures such as George Washington Carver and Benjamin Banneker are proposed to have been autistic, Robeson is the only African-American who to my knowledge has been analyzed for autistic traits using any sort of diagnostic criteria. And since my online journey began in late April 2010, I have noticed a distinct lack of the African-American presence in the online autism community. In an act of echolocation, I seek our presence to find, confirm, and perhaps reaffirm my own existence and reality as an African-American autistic. So Mr. Robeson, I have chosen you as my psychopomp for this journey.

Last month, Leah Kelley of 30 Days of Autism reposted my poem “Code” on her blog as well as our online exchange. It is a very rewarding experience when we can reach out to each other. This is probably one of my favorite things about blogging is the ability for echolocation — or as Susan Brackney, author of the “Lost Soul Companion” puts it, phatic communication, giving an example of how birds tweet to each other. We autistics who blog begin by saying “I am here, where are you?” and that was certainly one of the reasons for which I started Woman With Aspegers.

Last Friday was the beginning of Black History Month. Amidst what we will be hearing about it in February 2013 — which tends to be everything ranging from the celebration of African-American historical individuals and events to the usual question of why the shorter year of the month was chosen for this celebration — I will certainly be adding my own voice to the chorus of writers and bloggers.

In my case, I am fascinated with Paul Robeson — one individual where autism and Black history intersect. I first studied African-American history in high school through a (what was considered groundbreaking) semester-long class and found myself introduced to history I had never encountered before. It is where I was introduced to the Harlem Renaissance. It was where I began to explore poetry and where my love of the craft began to take wings through learning about Langston Hughes, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and Maya Angelou. And I recall a brief mention of Paul Robeson — giant of stage and song and inspiration to the likes of Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte. Robeson, best known for his portrayal in the title role of Shakespeare’s Othello, is proposed to have been an Aspie by author Norm Ledgin in his book Asperger’s and Self-Esteem: Insight and and Hope Through Famous Role Models. Ledgin compares some of Robeson’s behavior with the diagnostic criteria in the soon-to-be-superseded DSM-IV and concludes that Robeson fits the criteria for an Asperger diagnosis.

This month, I’m going to explore Robeson — who he was an an artist and a person, and through the lens of Asperger’s. Robeson was born in 1898 and died shortly before I was born (January 1976). I wonder — and would like to explore — about the reality he encountered as an African-American autistic in the early part of the twentieth century, and how that reality compares to the reality I encounter today as a multiracial African-American autistic.

And of course, this exploration will lead me to related questions. I know I am not the only African-American autistic out there. In my journeys over the last three years I have encountered some wonderful individuals, including record producer and autism advocate Michael Buckholtz. Logic dictates that he, I, and the few other individuals I have met cannot possibly be the only African-American Aspies out there. The big question in this case is: where ARE we? Through a bit of exploration, I hopefully may find some general answers (while being careful to respect the privacy of those who cannot be “out”) this month.

I hope you’ll join me on this fascinating journey this month. Hold on tight. It might be one heckuva ride.

Some of you may remember the Women, Autism, and Social Mimicry survey that I conducted back in November of 2011. As I mentioned earlier, I was aware of my own use of “scripts” for social interaction and was intrigued about the phenomenon of social mimicry among autistic women. This survey was meant to “take a pulse” or to get a sense of how common this might be.

I posted part I of the results of this survey in December of 2011. Due to personal issues in my life, I have been unable to devote the amount of time I have desired to the WWA blog until recently. Now I have been able to post part II of the survey results (questions 5, 6, and 7), which deal with the amount of difficulty with social interactions that the respondents experiences and whose social behaviours they mimicked. Questions 8, 9, and 10, which concern the reasons why respondents mimicked social behavior, bullying as a motivating factor, and continued mimicking, will be posted in part III. (Note: I initially intended to post this in two parts, but opted to post in three to aid in ease of reading.)

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Q5. Amount of Social Difficulty Experienced as Children/Teenagers

Women who took the survey were asked about the amount of social difficulty they experienced growing up — examples of social difficulty cited in the question included difficulty in making friends, playing with others, understanding social cues/facial expressions/tone of voice, and decoding unwritten social “rules” in their families or peer groups.

Most of the women who took the survey reported that they experienced either a moderate amount (33.49%) or a great amount (55.5%) of social difficulty as children and teenagers. This is nearly 89% of the respondents — and it’s not surprising, considering difficulty with social interaction is one of the most difficult and painful aspects of Asperger’s or other autism spectrum conditions.

3.83% of respondents reported that they were not interested in social interactions with others as children and/or teenagers. 2.39% reported experiencing a minimal amount of social difficulty, and .48% reported no social difficulty at all.

I received a variety of interesting responses by those who chose the “other” option (4.31%). A few of these stood out at me:

“Depended on situation: severe problems with family and random strangers, only moderate problems with self-selected peer group.”

“I had a core group of nerdy friends in school who accepted me as quirky. It was after graduating that I found it close to impossible to initiate or maintain any sort of social life.”

“Great amount of difficulty when I tried, much of my life I wasn’t interested in even trying.”

I found the first response very interesting because it was true for me at various times in my childhood and teen years. It was mostly true between ages twelve to eighteen and I attribute the major reason for my social difficulty with family members to the dysfunctional nature of the family in which I grew up. I’ve found that dysfunctional families can be the worst in regards to enforcing conformity to “status quo” — I believe that this tendency belies an attempt to hide the dysfunction from outsiders and thus any behavior construed to be even remotely weird, quirky, or out of the norm is regarded with suspicion or actively discouraged. While no exact data is available on the number of autistics who might have grown up in a dysfunctional family system, I imagine that it would be easy (albeit ethically and morally wrong) for other family members to cast them into the “scapegoat” role due to the perceived odd behavior and other challenges that come with autism spectrum conditions.

Q6. Frequency of Mimicking the Social Behavior of Others

Survey respondents were asked how often and how much they mimicked the social behavior of others as a child and/or teenager. Most autistic women in the survey reported a moderate amount of social mimicking (40.67%) and 32.54% reported a great amount of social mimicking. Some respondents reported a minimal amount of mimicking (12.44%), while 7.18% said that they were not interested in mimicking the social behavior of others. Less than 1% of respondents (.96%) reported that they did not mimic others’ social behavior at all.

6.22% of respondents chose the “Other” option and provided some interesting answers when asked to write in:

“This, of course, was different from my mid teens when my autism developed into Asperger’s Syndrome. From age 22, I was made aware of the importance of making (or faking) eye contact, faking certain body language, etc. – as an adult, I mimic much more.”

“I mimicked to a very small degree as necessary, but I was not interested in doing so. Only did because it was necessary.”

“I didn’t realize I was doing this until recently, when I look back.”

“I didn’t even realize that there WAS any social behavior that I could have mimicked.”

“I did not seem to pick up behavior ‘in person’ well at all. I did learn some mannerisms from fictional characters in books.”

“Again I was too socially aloof to even know there was a requirement or that I was not like everyone else.”

“100%, that’s all I did. Every action was a concerted effort at pretending to be the people around me.”

“I didn’t start mimicking until I was in my mid twenties.”

“Just observed as a young child; began to try out hypotheses about how to act at about age 6; have continued that approach lifelong. Do, observe results, modify or not.”

The results to Q6 indicate that a large percentage of survey respondents moderately or greatly mimicked the social behavior of others as children and teenagers. One might look at the amount of social mimicry as a continuum, with more of respondents skewing towards frequent mimicking.I’m being careful not to draw larger conclusions, but I find it this result very interesting. Might the large percentage of social mimicking, if translated into the same results for the larger population of autistic women, be one of the reasons many of us missed diagnosis? Dr. Tony Attwood seems to think so, but I think this question should be explored further.

A personal note: If I had answered this survey, I would have probably reported a minimal amount of mimicking — I didn’t really start doing this until I was 18 years old and at college, which is similar to a couple of the “other” respondents above. In my case, I was sick of being alone and ostracized as I had been throughout high school and thought that the way to end my loneliness and to gain friends was to become more extroverted, as I’d seen from some of my classmates in high school. I thought that once I was way from home, that gave me license to act in any way I wished. Unfortunately, I began to reject my introverted nature and developed a lot of behaviors that aren’t natively my own, which I am still trying to unlearn now.

Q7.Who Did Respondents Tend to Mimic?

(For this question, respondents were asked to select all applicable answers and were allowed to select more than one to answer this question. Totals may add up to more than 100%.)

Judging from the responses, those autistic females who mimicked the social behavior of other people chose a variety of models. (5.38 % of respondents to this question said that they did not mimic the social behavior of others.)

A large number of respondents (52.98% collectively) reported mimicking the behavior of classmates, playmates, and friends. 25.78% used the behaviors of both male and female classmates/playmates/friends as their models, 22.95% chose to mimic the behavior of other female classmates/playmates/friends, and 4.25 % chose to mimic male classmates/playmates/friends.

Altogether, 32.58% of respondents reported mimicking the behavior of family members. 16.15% said that they chose both male and female family members to mimic, 10.48% said that they chose female family members, and 5.95% reported mimicking male family members.

Breaking down by gender, 41.93% imitated the behavior of people from both genders (family members, friends, classmates, and playmates) while 33.48% imitated females and 10.2% imitated males.

9.07% of respondents chose the “other” option and gave a variety of explanations. Many of them reported imitating fictional characters from books, television shows, and movies. Some reported imitating teachers, authority figures, and other trusted adults. Others spoke of imitating celebrities and other famous individuals. I can relate to all of this because growing up, I did occasionally imitate classmates – however, I imitated fictional characters and celebrities more often. For example, I was a big fan of the television show “Punky Brewster” and when I was around ten or eleven, I began to imitate Punky, down to the way she dressed. Among other models I chose were both Pipi Longstocking, Denise and Vanessa Huxtable from The Cosby Show and Michael Stipe, the lead vocalist of R.E.M.

A few interesting responses regarding gender manifested themselves in explanations of those who selected “other”. Some reported identifying with males more or exhibiting what is generally considered male behavior. One woman had this to say:

“As an adult with Asperger’s Syndrome and having only the occasional companion through my life who always tend to be male, I mimic male behavior and really struggle to learn femininity or how to identify myself as ‘female’.”

Of course, statements like these raise more questions. I’m a strong supporter of being oneself and not conforming to behaviors expected for one’s gender if those behaviors are not naturally native to oneself. I believe that part of the problem autistic women encounter (and which I have encountered myself) is that we are confronted with gender norms and roles of which we may be unaware of or with which we cannot or do not wish to conform. I know I have found it difficult to find my own identity as a woman for these reasons. I find this particular issue intriguing and will be dealing more with it on this blog later.